Today’s Guest-clacker, Andrea, is a food enthusiast and all around geek with an interest in where her food comes from. Her interest in healthy eating comes from growing up in a household where processed food was limited, and a family that practices nutrition as preventative medicine. Her blog, Andrea the Gastronaut (a reference to a children’s song by a Canadian duo from the ’80s) can be found at https://www.canadianfoodiegirl.com.
Food Inc. begins with a stroll through the supermarket from the point of view of a grocery cart. The camera cuts between a supermarket tour and individual price signs and food labels superimposed with opening credits a la Weeds. The accompanying music is reminiscent of the score from a Tim Burton film as if to forewarn ominous or frightening events to come.
The film ends with a call to action, a list of steps that one can take to affect change.
In between the film is shot like a book. The opening credits serve as the introduction, or the prologue. Each titled section – or chapter – of the movie discusses a different food issue. Each chapter is a commentary on how big corporations are affecting our food with help from the U.S. government. The story becomes somewhat of a horror movie. The impact that big corporations have on farmers is frightening. Decisions affecting farmers are being made by company executives miles away far removed from the consequences.
Scarier are the revelations about Monsanto and how far they’ll go to protect the patent on their genetically modified seeds. One can almost imagine that Monsanto has hitmen working for them and that anyone caught saving Monsanto’s seeds could meet violent consequences. This isn’t far from the truth. Monsanto is a litigious company when it comes to protecting their patent.
Food Inc. introduces some of America’s farmers who are working under the food processors. It shows the illegal immigrant workers, arrested and deported at night as to not disrupt the food production during the day.
And the consumer? No one is safe from the affects “big food.” Not meat eaters, not vegetarians. Filmmaker Robert Kenner states that we’re creating foods that are making lower income people sick because we’re subsidizing certain foods that are not healthy. 90% of supermarket food has corn or soy in it because these crops are government subsidized. These products cost less than fruits and vegetables.
There’s a poignant scene in the film in which a low income family visits the supermarket. Dad is diabetic and spends much of his truck driver’s salary on medication. The mother and the younger of the two girls are obese. Dad laments that broccoli, at $1.29 per pound, is too expensive. The younger daughter asks for pears but at 99 cents per pound the family can only afford two or three. Her request is denied. Mom looks on, appearing despondent. In an interview she expresses sorrow: “Sometimes you look at a vegetable and say, ‘okay, well we can get two hamburgers over here for the same amount of price.'”
Not surprisingly, the big food corporations all refused to be interviewed for the film.
What can we do about this? Vote at the cash register, with our wallets. Demand change. Walmart started carrying organic products because there was customer demand for it. Gary Hirshberg of Stoneyfield Farms justifies his association with Walmart by saying that the more space that his products take up on shelves, the less space there is for non-organic products.
Hirshberg appeared on an expert panel for a Q&A that took place following the preview screening that I attended.
The irony of people eating popcorn and soda while watching the film was not lost. At one point during the screening a woman in the audience shouted out acknowledgment of that fact. It’s an issue that one of the panelists raised as well.
Food Inc. is difficult to watch. Some images are gruesome; so much so that you might shield your eyes. Animals were harmed during filming. The film is a wake up call, a depiction of ideas brought forth in books such as Fast Food Nation and Omnivore’s Dilemma. It is a call to action. If you’ve read books about the food industry you might not learn much, but the images are extremely powerful. It’s like watching the film version of a book, with less left to the imagination. The issues aren’t new but the stories are.
Food Inc. opened in LA. and New York last Friday and opened YESTERDAY in Toronto and many other cities. Check Food Inc.’s website to find out when it’s playing in your city.
Clacked by Guest Clacker
on Jun 20, 2009 @ 12:36 EST5EDT
I’ve been wanting to see this. I know it’s going to break my heart, but sometimes it’s necessary to have a little refresher course on why these things are important. It is *very* easy to relapse into denial.
I found this movie interesting on a number of levels and I hope many people go to see it since I think the same issues effect us here in Canada, too.